Quotes from the session: "The Pattern told me he disappeared a few weeks ago, but is still alive - no, the Pattern doesn't speak, but it told me anyhow." - William, trying to explain himself and failing.Sometimes, I feel as if I am directing a Laurel and Hardy movie, rather than directing a role-playing game. It was like this: William was at one end of the camp, attending to some small business or another, and Jessica was at the other end. Ganelon was in the middle, discussing things with Hazard. Both children decided at the same instant who he was, and both walked around the perimeter of the camp to where they had last seen the other, to tell them before they confronted him. Hazard and Ganelon split up, and each went their ways. Ganelon went to the nearest pub and got drunk. Hazard trumped William to give him a hint or two, so he could feel big about his discovery, and ended up telling him she had no idea where Ganelon was, out of sheer perversity. The upshot of this was that Jessica spent the night in Ganelon's tent waiting for him to return, while William went to the pub to have a quiet drink. Just before he arrived, Ganelon had slipped out of the window to avoid paying, and the landlord recognised William as Ganelon's friend, so the kid footed the bill. Hazard met up with Ganelon, and they returned to his tent together. Upon hearing someone inside, they decided not to wake whoever it was, on the grounds they might get nasty, and instead to borrow the tent of - wait for it - Jess. (Hazard had decided that though she normally slept curled up in a tiny room in Benedict's tent, he would want his privacy as he was still recovering from his wounds, even after magical help ad been given.)
"Do you think they know who you are?" Hazard to 'Ganelon'
"I should bloody well hope so by now. I've been hinting at them for days. Oberon, fed up at being Ganelon, after a very few days, and hoping his beating up on Gerard will get the kids thinking.
"How do you do that?" William
"Brute force and ignorance." Gerard
It was all sorted out in the morning, however, and Oberon, once discovered, agreed to go back to Amber as soon as he could, but meanwhile, he was still busy, and would they leave him alone for a while?
Oberon then ordered Jessica to find someone who could stand in for the king, and she thought, with only a dream-visit from Dworkin as a hint, of the picture of Finndo he had inscribed on the wall of her cell, when she was a prisoner. She suggested that as he was already either Regent or King, he could be relied on to continue with what he was doing. Oberon agreed, and left Jessica to go deliver the message. Not having a trump card of him, and not wanting to appear in the main hall and face questioning by Flora on Shadow fashions, she shifted back, and told him what his father had said.
His father was at this very moment ordering Benedict on a mission down the Black Road, to find out something of minor interest. Benedict went, and got into an awful amount of trouble. Thus, Oberon convinced him the danger was shadow-wide, and managed to look sad when Benedict did not succeed in his unimportant mission. This was not missed by Hazard.
Jessica, returning to Amber, was followed by Osric, who did not want to rip open a Shadow-path, the only way he had of moving. However, he soon got to attune himself to the black road.
This actually took several sessions of slow and painful work, but as the records and logs from that time are scratchy at best, being mainly notes about plot-hooks, I put together a synopsis. Once we get nearer to the present, the Diaries of the newer players bring the whole thing to life.